STOP THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE FROM COMMITTING ENVIRONMENTAL ABUSE

I am worried about how this pipeline will impact our environment in the near future. The money made from the Keystone pipeline is not worth the vast amount of carbon emissions that will be put into the atmosphere and the extensive damage to animal’s habitats. The pipeline could also ruin the surrounding land that it is built on. The Keystone XL pipeline will also impact the people living near the pipelines route. This includes many farmers whose land and water supply could be contaminated by the heavy crude bitumen carried in the pipes, as well as damaging the First Nations people’s sacred land. This issue is important to me because I feel strongly that we need to try our best to preserve our environment for future generations. My viewpoint on this issue is this pipeline has already done and will continue to do great damage to our environment.

I researched this issue and found out burning one barrel of Canadian tar sands crude emits one hundred and seventy pounds of greenhouse gases into our already deteriorating atmosphere. We do not need to burn more barrels of oil than we already are. Right now climate change is a huge issue and we need to try our best to slow it down, not speed it up. This pipeline will also affect the beautiful land it is being built on. This pipeline will destroy an almost 2000 kilometer stretch of land. Building it means destruction of land, deforestation, destroying many animals’ habitats and possibly making certain species endangered. I foresee that this pipeline will cause great damage to the environment. Oil spills are another issue that comes with building this pipeline. This is already an issue as the existing Keystone pipeline had 14 oil spills last year including most recently in South Dakota where 210 000 gallons of diluted bitumen was spilled. Building the Keystone XL will guarantee more oil spills which inevitably cause even more pollution in the long run. We need to stop this pipeline from being built and instead invest money into clean energy that will improve our environment instead of destroying it.